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Chinese Aide May Seek U.S. Refuge

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A senior Chinese official who disagreed with the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last spring has quietly arrived in the United States, apparently seeking refuge, American officials said yesterday.

The arrival of the official, Xu Jiatun, who until last fall served as China's top representative in Hong Kong, could further strain United States-Chinese relations, which are already upset by American outrage at the killing of protesters in Beijing last June.

Mr. Xu arrived in Los Angeles with two relatives around May 1, traveling on a tourist visa arranged by the United States Consulate in Hong Kong, Administration officials said yesterday. They said Mr. Xu has not applied for political asylum, but they said they believed that he left China to escape attacks by hard-liners.

'Just a Tourist'

Mr. Xu could not be located for comment, and his plans remain unclear.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said it had been told by the official New China News Agency in Hong Kong that Mr. Xu had come to the United States ''for a rest,'' and was in this country ''just as a tourist.'' He said the embassy had no information on how long Mr. Xu would remain.

Mr. Xu was serving as director of the New China News Agency in Hong Hong. The position made him China's unofficial governor in the British colony, which in the eyes of many residents gave him greater power than the British Governor.

Movie Stars and Nightclubs

As an indication of Mr. Xu's status, when he took over the job in 1983, Hong Kong was effectively elevated to the provincial level in China. Mr. Xu reported directly to the central Government in Beijing, Chinese analysts say.

Mr. Xu was a veteran Communist revolutionary who served as a political commissar in the Red Army before the Communists' victory in 1949 and rose to be first party secretary of Jiangsu Province.

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When he arrived in Hong Kong he was regarded as a hard-liner, an impression he confirmed during a speech by banging his glasses on the lectern and warning that China would not tolerate steps toward democracy in the British colony.

But Mr. Xu rapidly underwent a change, hobnobbing with wealthy Hong Kong business executives and escorting movie stars to Hong Kong nightclubs. He wrote articles suggesting China should learn from capitalism.

This may have been in part his mission in Hong Kong, to reassure the colony about China's intentions as Hong Kong faces a return to Beijing's control in 1997. Mr. Xu's actions may also have reflected the market-oriented economic changes then being carried out in China by Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang.

High-Level Connections

Mr. Xu often boasted of his close connections to both Mr. Zhao and Deng Xiaoping, China's senior leader.

Last spring, when student protesters called for greater democracy in Beijing, Mr. Xu is said to have urged a conciliatory solution as the only way to maintain Hong Kong's confidence.

But this January, Beijing announced that Mr. Xu's ''request to retire'' had been accepted. He apparently hoped to stay on in the new city of Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, but in April the Hong Kong press reported that Beijing had ordered Mr. Xu to return to his hometown, Nanjing, in central China.

A version of this article appears in print on May 19, 1990, on Page 1001003 of the National edition with the headline: Chinese Aide May Seek U.S. Refuge. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe